


Two Thousand Times One

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [36]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Art, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Canon Compliant, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Central Park, Clint Has Issues, Clint Needs a Hug, Couch Cuddles, Friendship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, New York City, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scrabble, Skin Hunger, Slow Romance, That one pizza place on the Upper East Side with the eight foot long pizzas OH MY GOD, Touch-Starved, WIP Big Bang 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in a long time, Bruce is in a good place. That makes it easier to agree when his sort-of teammate, Clint Barton, asks him for a favor. But the simple request turns into something more, and with dark forces preparing to burn down every inch of peace Bruce and Clint have found, they may not have the strength to last til the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS BANNER! IDEK, because it’s cool colors and well-shaded and I should be much calmer about this, but I literally will just open it on my phone sometimes to stare and be proud that my story inspired it. Thank you [kuwlshadow](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/)!!
> 
> The show Mystery Science Theater 3000 is mentioned herein. I have no idea how this came into my head, I just looked up and it was there on the page. And then I looked it up, because I had no idea what it was, and it fit perfectly. And… well, I must admit, that was a bit unsettling.
> 
> Written for [WIP Big Bang](wipbigbang.livejournal.com).

 [](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/48221.html)

 

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

_“There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematician that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one.”_

_  
― G.K. Chesterton_

 

 

Bruce is several hours into the purest of science trances, running an experiment while looking over freshly harvested data, when he feels a familiar tingling sensation on the back of his neck. It’s been months since this particular discomfort- three to be exact; Bruce walked into Candyland and hasn’t really come up for air since- and he reacts badly. Instead of taking a deep breath and remaining calm, Bruce immediately looks over his shoulder and flinches so hard he knocks some glassware off the lab bench.

His _unexpected_ guest manages to look sheepish, heels bouncing quietly where they hang off a lab bench. "Sorry doc. Didn't wanna announce myself, you seemed pretty focused on your work there."

Bruce disguises a few deep, calming breaths by collecting the chunks of glass and disposing of them in the proper containers. "Don't worry, Agent Barton. What can I do for you?" There's an undertone there- _'What will you ask me to do for SHIELD, and do you really think I will?'_ \- but most people wouldn't notice that.

Despite having only seen Bruce three times since the battle, in group situations, Agent Barton seems able to read between the lines. He scowls, though Bruce can't tell if it's a government patsy scowl or honest annoyance. "Man, we fought together, and I don't hate your guts. Call me Clint, or at least Barton."

Bruce nods at the floor, returning to his lab bench for something to do with his hands. "Sure."

"I… I need a favor."

Bruce has never heard Barton’s voice waver with uncertainty like that. He locks his gaze on the holographic screen. "What kind of favor?"

"Personal, not SHIELD."

There is a pause. Bruce glances over at Barton, who looks neither carefree and jocular nor battle-calm and focused: the two settings Bruce has seen him in. Instead, he's fiddling with a cell phone, lips pursed. Uneasy? Anxious? Manipulating, probably.

"I'm listening."

"I'm just-" Barton slips off the empty lab bench, fingers performing a quick staccato drum on its surface, and blindly tosses the phone from one hand to another, lightning fast. "I'm gonna need some help for a while. Nothing major. Help a buddy out?"

Bruce divines that he's not going to get any more information, and curses- for easily the hundredth time- his decision to accept an invitation to the Tower of Weird. But he doesn’t say "I'm going to be busy for a few weeks. I'm consulting on a project in Seoul," because he abruptly sees something in Barton's expression: something old and familiar as hard-packed ground, aching and carefully hidden; something he's nearly forgotten to look for since returning to America, that he hadn't realized might exist among the high-flying Avengers.

He asks, "Why me?"

Barton's expression gives away nothing. "Help me out, doc?"

This is Stark Tower. This is a first-world country where water and electricity and meat and relatively clean air and uncensored media are taken for granted, prerequisites to daily existence. This is a SHIELD agent. Bruce should know better.

But it’s also a test, the kind Bruce has been offered before and been forced- by circumstances, not a lack of willingness- to fail in the past.

So instead of a reasonable, polite rejection, he says, "Sure."

Barton gives him one of his toothy grins. The shadow Bruce recognized is covered up so easily he thinks he might have imagined it. Barton says, "Cool, thanks," and walks out of the lab, tossing a "Seeya 'round!" over his shoulder.

Bruce vaguely considers throwing himself off the tower.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

He gets the first hint of what he’s gotten himself into when, for the second time in a week, he glances up from his work and feels his heart leap in his chest. This time, Bruce refrains from breaking any glassware. Yippee.

Barton is sitting on the soft leather couch in the lounge area that Bruce discovered in his lab when he first moved in. He’s never sat there himself, preferring the ergonomic lab chair, but Barton seems to be enjoying it, head tipped back on the armrest and feet crossed over the top. His eyes are closed, face relaxed, but even from this distance Bruce can see the motion of his chest, deep smooth breaths in-in-in out-out-out.

“Clint?” he calls, awkwardly. Barton’s eyes open and his head turns, serene-looking, but he is very clearly not present. Bruce remembers the one and only time Tony had an anxiety attack in his presence and the rock music JARVIS had blasted. “Would you mind if I, uh- put on some music?” His hands twist in front of him.

“Sure,” Barton replies, shrugging casually and going back to his faux-relaxation.

Bruce clicks up a Pandora playlist for the Foo Fighters and wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

When he looks up a few songs later, Barton’s gone.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

Bruce takes dinner one night with Tony in his workshop, where they go back and forth about the nanotech design from Seoul. As most conversations with Tony do, the work talk eventually degenerates, this time to pitting their favorite fictional megalomaniacs against each other in pitched battles across the globe, then to places they would break into and why, and this, naturally, leads back to work.

"I haven't seen Natasha around for a few weeks," Bruce comments, digging for the last of his lo mein with improper chopstick technique and self-disgust. It's been a while since he drank, but not so long that a few glasses of Tony’s scarily expensive wine should cause this level of inhibition to his manual dexterity.

Lost in arguing against his own tipsiness, Bruce misses the response.

"Tell me Bruce, exactly how often do you lose time day-dreaming about our favorite Russian cat-burglar slash assassin?"

He's not blushing, it's the wine. "I'm not day-dreaming about Natasha, I just thought she and Barton were partners."

"They are. According to Pepper, they're just friends. No jock boyfriend to knock your teeth out when you get up the guts to say hi to her."

"I'm not interested in Natasha, Tony."

Tony snorts into his shot glass. "Tell it to Twitter."

"What?"

"Uh, never mind. What's on your mind, big guy?"

Bruce slumps deep into the leather couch, vaguely wishing people would stop calling him that. "Just, where is everyone? I thought you and Fury and Steve agreed we should stay local."

"First off, please don't imply that the Avengers are governed by triumvirate. I finance everything, I am the most kickass in the field- sorry big green- clearly I rule."

Bruce mumbles something which may or may not include 'massive ego.'

"I am ignoring that. Secondly, that was the plan before some power struggle started up in SHIELD and-- I quote-- 'our efforts and energies need to be focused in a different direction for the foreseeable future.'"

"Wait, what is this? There's a power struggle in SHIELD?" Sobriety starts to return, painfully fast.

"Don't worry your cute head." Tony fiddles with something on a tablet before throwing his feet up on the couch, shoes about two inches from Bruce's knee. "JARVIS analyzed SHIELD’s internal documents and said it's the usual spy agency nose-thumbing. Mainly Fury wanted an excuse to get Cap trained in twenty-first century field maneuvers."

Bruce empties his glass and squeezes his eyes shut. "Steve's part of SHIELD now?"

"Independent agent in DC for the moment, but I think Widow's trying to marry him in."

"So half our team is..."

When he trails off, Tony gives him a sympathetic look- or the closest to one he can, anyway. "They're Avengers first."

Bruce sets his lo mein on the couch beside him, closing his eyes. "Are they?"

Tony doesn't answer. When Bruce looks up, Tony is intently focused on his tablet, expression ambiguous.

  

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

There’s a pattern for a while: Barton will show up in his lab without a sound, send Bruce halfway to a dangerous heart rate when he notices, then leave after a few minutes. Sometimes he’ll be poking at his phone, sometimes humming to himself, sometimes curling up into a ball on Bruce’s couch, eyes closed and twitching subtly at any noises.

When he doesn’t show up for four days in a row, Bruce asks JARVIS if Barton has left on a mission or something. JARVIS informs him that Barton was in his lab earlier that day. After that, Bruce has JARVIS set an unassuming pop-up alert whenever his fellow Avenger appears in the lab.

Even then, he doesn’t always notice. The consultation for Seoul turns into a full-on collaboration and Bruce doesn’t notice how much time he’s been spending on it until Barton has to say his name a few times to get his attention away from a spreadsheet.

Bruce blinks up at the archer, who’s giving him a curious look from a few feet away. “You awake in there?” Barton asks.

“Yeah, I- what do y- is something wrong?” Bruce fumbles to clean his glasses, surprised that Barton had gotten so close without startling him.

“You look like shit.” Barton frowns when he says it, but in a puzzled, problem-solving way, like he’s actually devoting thought to Bruce’s appearance and the wherefores thereof.

Bruce concentrates on rubbing away some smears on his lenses and tries to ignore the tightness in his gut stemming from Barton’s words. Why should he care what Barton thinks about him? They’re not friends. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean- you look tired.”

Bruce looks up. Barton’s striking eyes seem like they could see right through him. Maybe they can. Bruce has never forgotten that Barton is a SHIELD agent as well as an Avenger, and whatever he let himself think was happening here, however familiar it felt- he could have just been fooling himself. He needs to stop giving these people ground, because eventually he’ll have none left.

“I’m fine,” he says, calmly. Very calmly. Good job, Banner, no spooking the spook.

Barton raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t seem concerned. Maybe he can’t tell how angry Bruce is right now? “Yeah, sure. You look worse than me, and I’m no spring chicken myself. You been sleeping?”

“Of course, I-” He has to blink twice to refocus his eyes on Barton. Hurriedly, he puts his glasses back on.

“Come on Doc, time for a break. Take it from me, it’s pretty easy to damage your eyesight with computers and shit.”

“I’m busy.”

Barton nods, stretching his lips. Bruce watches, fascinated. Then Barton looks back at him, and that familiar space is there in his eyes. “Take a break and chill with me.”

Bruce looks back at his monitor and slowly, with far too much effort, moves the cursor to minimize the page.

Apparently, the table in front of the couch is stocked with all sorts of odds and ends, from condoms (thanks, Tony) to a paddle ball with Myron Ebell’s face on it. Barton unearths a decades-old scrabble board and sets it up on the table.

Bruce starts yawning before he hits thirty points. He’s winning when he starts all of a sudden, realizing he nearly drifted off sitting there with Barton. The agent, meanwhile, is smirking at him.

“Ready for a nap?”

He looks like Tony when Tony teases people he likes, Bruce realizes, not like Natasha poking at someone to test their reaction. In this half-asleep state, closer to the instinctual side of him than he’s usually comfortable with, Barton reads safe.

Bruce has learned to trust the snap judgements that come from that deeper place in his head, even as he tries to ignore and suppress the other symptoms.

“I’ll wake you up in an hour, how about that?” Barton smiles gently, and Bruce thinks he’d really like to see that when he’s not…

Barton wakes him up an hour later, calling his name quietly, kneeling close but not too close to the couch. A blanket has been spread out over him, though Bruce has no idea where it could have come from.

Barton stands while Bruce sits up blearily. “I gotta go, doc. See you around?”

“Sure,” Bruce replies, still confused and half-asleep.

Barton winks at him and is gone in a half dozen steps.

Bruce reviews the afternoon and calls himself six types of idiot.

  

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
When he heads to the upper floor cafeteria for dinner (he has a kitchen in his quarters, but the executive floors at Stark Tower have a private chef overseeing the menus), his usual table is already occupied. The man sitting there does not have any food in front of him.

Barton’s body language radiates tension. His half-smile when Bruce approaches with his plates is normal enough, but his fingertips gripping the upper edge of the chair beside him are white. The other people in the cafeteria aren’t consciously aware of danger, but their hind brains know it’s there, and there’s a radius of two empty tables on every side. The Other Guy senses it, too.

Barton nods. Bruce nods, sitting across the table from the agent, not diagonally across. He knows what it’s like to have people politely distance themselves from you, and Barton seems in control. More than Bruce himself usually is, in any case. Who is he to throw stones?

Neither of them talk while Bruce eats his food. Barton stares at Bruce’s plate, then seems to zone out at one of the multiple news channels playing on the wall-mounted screens.

When he’s finished eating, Bruce pulls out his phone and answers emails and reads research notes for a half hour. He’s had enough people walk away from him, too.

JARVIS pings his phone, and he looks up to an empty table.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
The next time Bruce has dinner in the lounge on the erstwhile team communal floor- the lounge that has never seen more than three people at a time, and only two Avengers- Barton shows up in an intimidatingly black, slick-cut jacket and thick black khakis. His eyes look sunken in the light from the city and the Nova documentary Bruce has been casually heckling. He slumps on the opposite end of the couch and tucks his knees under his chin.

Bruce focuses on the juxtaposition between the agent’s sturdy arms and the self-hugging pose to distract himself from the deep-seated urge to comfort. Barton is staring at the television screen like he’s extracting intelligence from it. Or like he’s in the middle of a desperate internal battle and the cultured British announcer’s voice is the only thing keeping him alive.

Bruce lasts about fifteen minutes, until Barton starts rubbing his cheek on his knee.

He moves along the couch, slowly. Barton’s attention had leapt to him as soon as he shifted his weight, and the agent watches his progress without reaction. The dead look on his face takes Bruce back to a dozen bad situations in four different countries, back to a wide white landscape and the insides of his own eyelids.

He reaches out hesitantly, and when Barton doesn’t move, drops his arm across Barton’s shoulders. Then he goes back to watching the documentary like this position isn’t getting more uncomfortable by the minute, and like his head isn’t swirling with self-recrimination and second-guessing.

Barton sighs into his knees and leans into Bruce’s side. They adjust for a few seconds, and when they settle down, it’s probably the most comfortable Bruce has been in years.

The documentary ends and a new one about black holes comes on. Bruce orders pizza on his phone, letting Clint poke the screen to choose his own toppings. The food arrives and they eat in silence, then sit close again to keep watching. One of Barton’s arms has found its way to Bruce’s knee, his head half-resting on Bruce’s shoulder. The enhanced olfactory capabilities Bruce inherits from the Other Guy mean he can smell Barton’s shampoo, his aftershave, his depression, his fear, and his happiness and surprise.

He tries not to think about it; fails; tries harder.

When the second documentary runs its credits, Clint sits up and smiles at Bruce more honestly than Bruce had ever seen. He hugs Bruce, who hugs him back, feeling washed clean by simple comfort. Clint kisses his cheek and Bruce jumps.

“Sorry,” Clint says, but he’s still smiling. His hand is on Bruce’s shoulder, and John Greene has started talking about the base units of the universe, and Bruce’s mind is whirling in a way he barely remembers. ‘Yes,’ he thinks, without knowing why.

“It’s okay,” he says back, swallowing. They haven’t spoken this whole evening, he realizes. Bruce can’t remember ever being quiet with someone for this long outside of a lab.

Clint’s eyes dart between his. Clint’s eyes are gray, gray-blue, and so much more animated than when he arrived in the lounge. Bruce watches Clint’s eyes as the agent leans forward again and brushes another kiss across Bruce’s lips.

The kiss sends a shiver through Bruce’s whole body and he leans into the sensation. Clint’s mouth is warm and the heat of his body, which has been relaxing for the last few hours, is making Bruce feel awake and sensitive of every inch of skin.

His fingers tighten in Clint’s jacket; Clint’s hand slides up to hover over Bruce’s jaw. They kiss again, inch closer, kiss again. John Greene is still talking in the background, with a typical Nova music-track. Clint’s hand slips into Bruce’s hair and his fingers curl. Bruce shivers and pulls him even closer.

He hasn’t kissed anyone in years. He hasn’t kissed anyone like this, fresh and unknown, in decades. He smiles into Clint’s mouth and breathes in Clint’s breath and feels twenty years younger.

The kisses grow deeper. Their noses brush, and Bruce discovers that Clint is ticklish to light stroking on his sides. Clint pushes him against the back of the couch and strips off his jacket in economic movements, holding Bruce’s gaze the whole time. Bruce’s heart is pounding, but harder, not faster. It feels good.

Clint lays above him and lets his weight rest on Bruce. The angle is awkward, but Bruce lets out a quiet moan anyway, the first sound either of them have made. “Oh yeah,” Clint breathes against his cheek, and Bruce repeats the sound, tracing up Clint’s back with both hands. His unformed thoughts are covetous and disbelieving and prayerful, and then he spends a while, for once, not thinking at all.

Their thighs press together and their hands explore for long minutes, drawing quiet gasps and laughter and whimpers from each other, until Clint bucks and gasps and Bruce pulls his hands out from under Clint’s shirt quickly. Clint shakes, eyes molten, and Bruce smiles smugly at him and puts ‘scratching’ in his mental Yes column.

“We should probably cool it down,” Clint whispers, and Bruce realizes that both of them are shaking, but he looks at Clint’s red, wet mouth and has trouble caring about things like professional relationships and heart rates. He can’t remember the last time he felt so far away from a transformation.

“I don’t think so,” he says, reassuringly, or at least he hopes, considering his mental facilities are concentrated on memorizing the taste of Clint’s tongue. He leans forward and pulls on Clint to get them back together.

“No, Bruce,” Clint says, smiling and carefree. His hand plants on Bruce’s chest. “I mean- I don’t feel like a cold shower tonight, and- I don’t wanna-”

There’s a few seconds of delay while Bruce remembers what a brush-off is. God, it’s been awhile. “Oh yeah, sure, I- uh-” He gets distracted again by Clint’s lips, and his tight stomach under the t-shirt, and it’s another few minutes until Bruce breaks away, saying “Okay, I get what you mean.”

Clint snorts and scoots away on the couch, snagging his coat from the floor. Bruce stares at the television until he can identify the subject of the newest documentary. He looks at Clint and feels a warm glow at the sight of the agent’s flyaway hair and pink cheeks.

“So, uh. I guess I’ll see you soon?” Clint asks, rubbing the back of his neck.

Bruce nods. “I’ll put the pizza away. Lunch for tomorrow, right?” He’s smiling way too much, isn’t he? Clint looks almost uncomfortable, he should probably tamp down the stoned smile. Bruce piles the remaining pizza into one box (there’s not much left; an athlete’s metabolism and a calorie-draining alter-ego can really put it away) and tries to pretend like he’s not on cloud nine.

“Hey,” Clint says seriously. “Thank you. For sitting with me.” He makes a vague gesture that Bruce understands as signifying the last few weeks, not just tonight. “It’s been- good.”

“Sure. No problem,” Bruce manages. He nods, solemnity somewhat overtaking full-body tingles.

Clint’s gaze catches on his mouth again before he says goodnight.

As soon as the elevator doors ding closed, Bruce flops back down on the couch and mentally carves himself some much deserved deep-breathing and processing time.

It turns into an hour, and he spends half of it blushing.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
The next day, Clint comes to the lab for pizza. Bruce heats it over a bunsen burner and is duly and appreciatively teased.

They play Scrabble. Bruce knows more words, but Clint has a knack for placing his tiles on bonus squares with alarming dexterity. Their fingers brush passing the tile bag back and forth and Clint kisses him quickly, almost shyly, before running off to ‘a meeting.’

Bruce feels like a college freshman again. He can’t bring himself to regret it.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
It’s that evening that Bruce finally makes an obvious realization and texts Tony for dinner in the lounge. They haven’t spent much time together over the last month- Bruce busy with his project with Dr. Cho and Tony with his classified project (it’s new technology to keep a helicarrier aloft; Tony mumbles to himself when he forgets Bruce is in the same room)- and Tony doesn’t realize anything is out of the ordinary until Bruce asks him about his romantic history with men.

Tony’s face does something new and frightening, and he squirms as he says, “You know, while you do have the sexiest brain I’ve ever played with, Pepper and I are in a committed- that is to say, monogamous- relationship. If I’d met you a few years ago-”

Bruce chokes on his sushi.

“And, that’s not what you were asking about at all and I just made this horribly awkward.” Tony’s eyes are wide like coins. “Please don’t leave me without any intellectual, purely platonic equals in New York.”

“I’m not-” Bruce shakes his head quickly, putting down his chopsticks before he drops them. “I’m not leaving.” The sentiment feels a lot more taken-for-granted than it would have a few months ago. “I need advice.”

“Great, advice.” Tony nods quickly, cheeks a darker olive than usual. “Whaddya got for me, big guy?”

Firmly ignoring the sudden tension in the air, Bruce continues along his original line of questioning. “Have you ever been with men?”

“A few, why?” Tony shoots back.

“I… I haven’t. I… thought about it. But I’ve never had an opportunity. I just… do you have any advice?” Bruce stares at his meal and pretends that he doesn’t want to faceplant into it.

“Use more lube than you think you’ll need.”

“ _Tony._ I meant…”

“Are we talking one night stand, fuck buddies, friends with bens, cutesy names, or buying rings?” Tony reclines in his armchair and puts his feet on the coffee table, apparently comfortable again with the new track of conversation.

“Umm... “ Bruce gets side-tracked by a split-second fantasy of Clint calling him ‘pumpkin’ like Betty used to. “I think… friends? With benefits?”

Tony is clearly making an effort to keep the derision off his face. Bruce appreciates it. “Okay then. If you’re not sure, don’t make it awkward. A woman usually wants feelings involved if they went to the trouble to get with you in the first place. If she doesn’t, she’ll make that clear. Guys are different. Unless he’s the hearts and flowers type, don’t stress about it. Go with the flow.”

Bruce tries to fit this advice to his- well, with how he and Clint have been relating. It’s difficult. But then, so is trying to imagine hearts and flowers with the way Clint’s hand will jump to his pocket whenever there’s a vibration in the vicinity, and Bruce can read on his face that he’s already half-shifted to black ops agent mode.

Yeah. Probably not that, then.

“Don’t rock the boat. You want more, go for it, but until then, enjoy the ride.” Tony winks and shovels some calamari into his mouth. Bruce tries not to blush, but he ends up staring at Tony’s goatee and comparing it to Clint’s evening stubble and has to forcefully shut down that line of thinking.

“So who’s the lucky guy?” Tony asks. “Unless we’re speaking in the hypothetical, of course.” He raises his hands as though Bruce were about to snap at him.

“It’s… Clint.” Unsure whether he should tell Tony, on several levels, the names feels like it trips off his tongue.

Tony sits up, shocked. “Head case? Bruce, is that the best idea?”

“He’s not a head case,” Bruce retorts, stunned. “And I can see whoever I want.” Of all the people who feel like they deserve to weigh in on his anger issues, Tony has never been one of those advising caution.

“I know, just- Bruce, he’s... “

Bruce narrows his eyes. Tony is unsettled, nervous, apologetic. He sniffs the air and detects traces of happiness, and a hint of fear. “Do you think he’s unstable?”

Tony hesitates. For someone who thinks as fast as he does, that’s basically an answer on its own.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
Two days later, Bruce has had a breakthrough in his aspect of the Korean collaboration and works through lunch and dinner. He blinks around 10pm and realizes he’s chewing Chinese food off a fork, with a carton in the other hand and empty boxes and bags around him.

“JARVIS?” he mumbles around the mouthful of confusing sustenance.

Understanding his query, JARVIS brings up the Clint alert from the corner of one of Bruce’s screens, where he apparently minimized it… four hours ago. Bruce swivels around and spots Clint on his back on the couch, with one knee up against the backrest and his arms crossed over his chest. There’s an almost frightening stillness to his pose, jarring enough that Bruce sets down the carton and walks over.

Clint turns toward him when he’s a few meters away, belying the impression of a statue he’d been giving off. His eyes are just as stony, though, and he immediately turns his gaze back to the ceiling.

Bruce stutters to a stop on the other side of the coffee table. “Do you…”

Clint shakes his head firmly. Somehow, without moving a muscle, his body language gets even more closed off.

After a moment’s thought, Bruce nods. “Okay,” he says gently and heads back to his workstation.

In the moments before he sinks back into his project, Bruce tells himself, firmly, that Clint is a grown man, and if there’s anything he needs, he knows he can ask for it.

Another voice, one he tries to ignore, just mutters ‘head case’ like it’s proved a point.


	2. Chapter 2

The Avengers who have remained in New York are called into SHIELD to give a readiness report. It’s been pushed back a month already due to Tony’s schedule, but even with the advance notice, Bruce can’t calm himself completely with the knowledge that he’s entering SHIELD’s territory.  
  
It’s the animal part of his brain that categorizes things that way, Bruce thinks to himself. Just instinct. All the same, walking through the door feels more illicit than crossing an international border; more deadly, too.

On one side, Tony is on a cell phone half the time, but otherwise is in good spirits, relatively. He keeps throwing asides into his patter about all the things he ought to be doing other than being here, but Bruce has learned to read between the lines, and Tony is about as happy as he can be on an average day.  
  
On the other side, or more often drawing slightly behind them, Clint isn’t doing as well. Whenever Bruce glances at him, the archer looks disproportionately uncomfortable in his own agency, expression blank but unwelcoming and giving off a ‘don’t talk to me, don’t even look at me’ vibe.  
  
The meeting isn’t great. The SHIELD agent they’re meeting with introduces himself as Sitwell, a mentee of Agent Coulson; that, and Clint’s sincere welcome and quiet approval should be enough to smooth things over. But something about the guy sets off those same instincts in the back of Bruce’s mind. He doesn’t let his guard down for a second while Agent Sitwell is with them, can’t ignore the deep growling below his conscious thoughts.  
  
It doesn’t help that Tony makes it a point to be provocative. On and on about how all the information they’re passing on could’ve gone through email, and how important his time- and Bruce’s time!- is. Does Sitwell even have clearance for information on the Avengers?  
  
It’s almost a relief when Tony gets tired and declares the meeting over. The longer they remained at SHIELD, the tenser Clint had gotten, and the more the beast in Bruce’s head had felt changed in. Bruce follows Tony out over Sitwell’s protests, feeling more tired than he has in weeks.  
  
As soon as they get outside, Tony declares that he wants pizza. Bruce finds himself swept up in Tony’s wake, which was probably intentional on Tony’s part. Clint’s face is gray and he doesn’t look like he cares what’s happening around him. Bruce makes it a point to nudge against him as Tony’s chauffeur takes them around the city, and he thinks that Clint may start breathing easier from the contact.  
  
When they arrive, Bruce is instantly comforted. The pizza place could exist anywhere in America, except that the interior is tiny, like most Manhattan restaurants. They find a booth, though, and Tony must slip someone something because their food is out lightning fast.  
  
Bruce picks at his food. The day feels dark, even though it’s just a bit overcast. At his side, Clint is looking out the window. Though their sides brush in the small booth, he seems a hundred miles away. Unreachable.  
  
Across from him, Tony is very disgruntled.  
  
“What’s wrong with you two? You’re like a pair of thunderclouds following me around, only cuter.” When this fails to get a rise, he grumbles more.  
  
Bruce just shrugs in response. The way Clint’s being silent, Bruce has a feeling that talking would push him even further away. At least if he remains quiet as well, Clint isn’t alone.  
  
Eventually, Tony declares that they’re hopeless and pulls out his phone. They make it through half a pizza and a bucket of wings in the awkward air of people who know they should be conversing, but have nothing to say.  
  
Then, Bruce feels something touch his arm. He looks down to find a napkin with tic-tac-toe board, an X already drawn in, being nudged at his elbow. There’s a hint of something in Clint’s eyes when Bruce meets them; a wry apology, perhaps, or the casual optimism of someone who’s not hoping too hard.  
  
Bruce takes the pen he’s being offered and scratches an O.  
  
Tony notices a few games later. The surprise that flies across his face is simple and profound. “Hey! Recalling the classics, are we? Let me play!”  
  
“Can’t play three-person,” Clint replies quietly. It’s the first thing he’s said since “Hey” this morning.  
  
Tony snorts. “Plebe.”  
  
What follows is an extremely technical and absolutely stupid debate about three-way tic-tac-toe methodology. Bruce and Tony argue about how many dimensions they can add to the game while Clint scribbles on several napkins, grinning slightly every time one of the scientists comes out with something obviously ridiculous. They’ve reached the point where Tony is threatening to throw a fry across the table when Clint slides a napkin between them and sits back, arms crossed smugly.  
  
Tony and Bruce lean in as one, shoving plates aside in mutual intellectual trances.  
  
“Barton… I may have been wrong about you,” Tony declares solemnly. “I’ll bet you did graduate high school.”  
  
“GED,” Clint says sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“This is brilliant,” Bruce murmurs, already unconsciously making notations beside Clint’s work on the napkin.  
  
“Thanks doc, but, it’s only math.”  
  
Bruce doesn’t hear anything beyond the elegant solution before him, but Tony laughs loudly enough to turn heads.  
  
“Aww, Legolas, we’re gonna have to start calling you Cupid if you keep handing out love letters like this!”  
  
Bruce doesn’t even notice the conversation going on over his head, but by the time he looks up Tony’s face is red with laughter and Clint is glowering. He touches Clint’s leg under the table, and the glower deepens as Clint looks back out the window.  
  
Bruce smiles, though; it’s the most alive Clint has looked in a while. And when they leave, Clint smiles at him, a real, full smile, when they step outside and the sun has broken through the clouds.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
He doesn’t get so much as a whisper of warning. Bruce’s instinct just go off one day, and he’s suddenly hyper-aware of the boundaries of his lab, and that someone has crossed into them. Suddenly, he knows just how long Clint has been playing on an old GameBoy on the couch, though he didn’t notice him enter, and he knows that Natasha is staring at the back of his head.  
  
“When did you get here?” Clint asks. He doesn’t sound as welcoming as Bruce would have expected.  
  
“Today. And I’m leaving today.” She pauses pointedly.  
  
“Don’t worry about him,” Clint says, “he’s in a science zone, he can’t hear a word we’re saying.”  
  
Bruce swallows. Clint knows how he is about people in his space.  
  
“Something fishy’s going on in D.C. Rogers and Fury want you there.”  
  
She’s terse, and succinct. Bruce’s insides tighten, though externally he appears just as relaxed as before.  
  
“Fishy like how?”  
  
“Fishy like I want you with me.”  
  
There’s silence for a good minute. Bruce can’t read anything in it. For all that he’s gotten better at reading Clint, there is a whole other side to the man that he hasn’t the opportunity or the desire to get to know. Agent Barton is foreign to Bruce, distant for good reason. That’s the person Natasha knows, the one she’s no doubt reading like a book right now.  
  
In the back of Bruce’s mind, anger simmers. Someone is trespassing on his territory.  
  
“It’s better if I stay in New York. You might need someone at HQ. And Stark and Banner are here.”  
  
“It’s a good strategic move,” Natasha says quietly.  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“And that’s not why you’re staying.”  
  
More silence. Bruce types something. He doesn’t know what.  
  
“Fix it,” Natasha says at last, and Clint mumbles an agreement. Natasha leaves without saying a word to Bruce.  
  
Ten minutes later, Bruce reaches a stopping point in his work and disengages. Clint is sitting up on the couch when he turns around, watching him. He’s entirely in the moment, not hazy-eyed at all. Waiting.  
  
“Got any opinions?” he asks.  
  
“You knew I was listening,” Bruce states. The question is implied.  
  
“You’re an Avenger. If something’s up, you deserve to know.” Clint’s gaze is level. There’s no hint of either familiar warmth or his oft-present distraction: he’s all business. It’s surprisingly comforting.  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“No idea. If it’s got Nat spooked, it’s not good. Let’s lay low. You get called into SHIELD, tell them you’re sick.”  
  
Bruce doesn’t get contacted by SHIELD often, but Clint’s words are firm. His certainty and calmness comfort Bruce’s nerves, which are twitchy in the wake of the Widow’s appearance.  
  
“What about you?” he asks.  
  
“They already know I’m sick,” Clint says wryly. He gets up. He makes a noise like his body is old and sore, but his fingers secret the GameBoy into non-existence as deftly as a magician. “I’ll fill Tony in. See if he can manage to gather intelligence quietly for once.”  
  
Bruce stands as well, too fast. Clint watches him warily as he approaches, hesitates, reaches out awkwardly.  
  
Clint takes his hand and Bruce doesn’t care that it’s awkward, or that they stand like that, squared off, a foot and a half apart, until Clint nods once and lets go, walks away. It’s enough that Clint reached back.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
It’s a Thursday afternoon, and they’re on the couch in the lounge watching reruns of Mystery Science Theater 3000. An unusual pizza, about eight feet long and a foot wide, lies demolished on the table, along with a selection of disgusting drinks from the health bar in the kitchen. A box of pastries from a bakery in Midtown has been emptied, scattering crumbs across the table and, occasionally, onto the floor.  
  
Bruce has a hand twined with his, and another twisted through his hair, and Clint’s warm weight cuddled close. It’s been the best day he can remember in a long time.  
  
Clint’s phone beeps, but he ignores it for a minute until he sluggishly lets go of Bruce’s hand to reach for it. A moment later, he groans.  
  
“I’ve got to go. Friend needs a consult.”  
  
Bruce opens his eyes; he hadn’t realized they’d closed, but as blissful as he feels, it’s somehow not an issue. “How long?” he mumbles.  
  
“Should be quick.” Clint drops a kiss to his neck, then lingers. Bruce hums as Clint kisses higher, gently, before burying his face in Bruce’s hair. “Mm, I’ll come back quick. Promise.”  
  
“You’d better.”  
  
Bruce doesn’t remember anything past that, but he wakes up an hour later, and a blanket has been draped over him. His skin is tingling, tickling, almost, and it’s getting in the way of the drowsiness he’d been so enjoying.  
  
Eventually, he’s twitching enough that he makes himself stand up from his warm pocket on the couch and shake to get rid of it. More animal instincts, for sure, because Bruce finds himself looking around the room, missing something.  
  
What could make this go away? he wonders. Immediately, his brain returns a reply: more cuddling.  
  
Bruce lays back down under the blanket, because no better options present themselves, and analyzes. He’s felt skin-hunger before, during the long years he was on the run. He’d gotten so used to it that it became normal, unnoticed.  
  
But he’s spent a lot of time with Clint recently, much of it filled with touching and kissing. Even when they just eat meals together, or share the couch in the lounge to chat, they like to be close together. And when they’re close, Bruce shakes, like a kid kissing someone for the first time.  
  
He’s sensed something of that skittishness, that newness to intimacy, from Clint as well, but from a darker place than merely long loneliness. Each of Bruce’s touches or quiet words overwrites something inside Clint. Bruce knows it from the way Clint reacts to others, like he’s steeling himself for a threat that never quite shows. He doesn’t know why Clint chose to him, months ago, decided he was trustworthy and capable enough to offer support and healing, but he’s grateful.  
  
When Clint returns, late and tired-looking, Bruce waves off his apologies. He earns a laugh out of the SHIELD agent by tucking him under a blanket, but Clint settles into his side with a lazy smile, and Bruce’s skin stops itching at last.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
A nudge to his shoulder- more like a shove- breaks Bruce out of his programming haze.  
  
“You awake in there?” Clint says loudly. Bruce spins in his chair and finds the archer crossing his arms. “I was afraid you’d got dragged into cyberspace.”  
  
Bruce shakes his head a little, wincing at the stiffness in his neck. He checks the time: two in the afternoon. Not bad for a work session, though… he can’t remember eating lunch. Right on time, his stomach grumbles heavily.  
  
Clint chuckles. “Think you’re ready for a break?” he teases. He takes Bruce’s elbow to drag him to his feet, and doesn’t let go for a moment, until Bruce thoughtlessly glances down at his hand. Clint releases him quickly and takes a step back. “We could get that Indian food you liked,” he continues, shoving a hand into his pocket casually.  
  
Bruce’s skin feels colder where Clint’s not touching it. He shivers, wishing he’d thought to wear a long shirt to the lab. But the weather report was so nice this morning…  
  
He blinks, remembering JARVIS’s wake-up call. A moderate day, with highs in the early eighties and light cloud coverage. Low humidity. Bruce had looked out his window at the clear air and smiled, even though he hadn’t gone outside in- weeks!  
  
“Let’s… go to the park?” he suggests, stuttering as he realizes that he and Clint have never gone anywhere together besides different rooms in the Tower and the pizza place Tony took them to after their disastrous interview with SHIELD. Normally they stick to Bruce’s lab and the communal lounge, and Bruce’s living room when he wants tea.  
  
Clint looks like he’s having the same thoughts. “...Sure,” he says eventually, looking uncertain. “You want… hot dogs?”  
  
“I want sunlight,” Bruce admits, more earnestly than he’d expected.  
  
Ever since he realized why he can’t get enough of touching Clint, his time on the run has been more on Bruce’s mind than ever. It’s been so long since his life was anything more than a struggle to stay calm and under the radar. Now that he’s relatively safe at Stark Tower as a member of the Avengers, he hasn’t really let go of the old patterns, Bruce realizes. He’s stayed in the Tower, his island of safety, and can’t even remember the last time he appreciated a breeze over his face!  
  
“Let’s go for a walk,” he decides.  
  
Clint is taken aback by his intensity, but nods. “I’ll change into something- better.” He inspects his usual daytime wear of a black t-shirt and black pants and smiles a little when Bruce huffs.  
  
A few minutes later, they’re on the street walking uptown. The Tower is only a few moments from Central Park, but even before their shoes hit grass, Bruce can feel his spirits rising. There’s a breeze coming from the North, and Bruce’s keen sense of smell can pick up all sorts of nature scents that he hasn’t smelled for too long. Also, hot dogs.  
  
Clint, now properly clad in jeans and a plaid button-down, buys four hot dogs as soon as they reach the park. He loads two up with mustard and relish, and dribbles ketchup on the others, grimacing as he does so. “The ruin of a perfectly good dog.”  
  
Bruce frowns. “Then why-”  
  
Clint scoops up the two ‘ruined’ hot dogs and places them in Bruce’s hands.  
  
“I just take a bit of mustard, or some red pepper if they have it.”  
  
“Trust me doc, this is how you like it.” Clint winked, managing to smile despite a disgusted glance down at Bruce’s meal.  
  
They head into the park. For a while, there are roads with families and joggers and bikers and cars, and Clint takes pleasure in pointing out people who aren’t dressed for the weather, or who have cute dogs. A few minutes further on there are fields where people are sunning themselves or playing frisbee. Beyond that, the crowds thin out, and there are paths through trees and tall grasses.  
  
Bruce discovers that he has consumed both hot dogs, ketchup and all, and enjoyed every bite. He gives Clint a suspicious look, which makes the archer clutch his gut, tipping back his head and laughing to the sky. Bruce watches him, pleasantly shocked, because he’s never seen more than a hearty chuckle out of Clint.  
  
Maybe the sun really will do them good.  
  
They walk through a forest, where the paths are carefully tended and the wildlife fearless. Bruce can hear and smell the small animals around, the richness of the vegetation, and his basic understanding of ecology and landscape planning fills in a mental map of the area. He tells Clint about it, how many people must have put so much work for so long into making this place free and wild and effortless, and how much upkeep it requires, for nature to flourish at the heart of mankind’s devastation on its environment. He segues into the ways humans have changed even the shape of Manhattan, and ends up at global warming.  
  
Eventually, they exit the forest, and it isn’t until someone gives the two of them an amused, sideways look that Bruce realizes that he’s been rambling about earth sciences as they walked through the Ramble. He promptly stops talking and feels a blush creep up his cheeks.  
  
“What?” Clint asks. “So what did the climate change panel decide?” Then he squints at Bruce’s face. “Trouble?” he mutters, demeanor going cold and aware all at once.  
  
“No!” Bruce insists. He hesitates, but putting Clint at ease is more important. “I just… forgot that where we just went is a famous cruising spot.”  
  
After a beat, Clint starts laughing again. Bruce breathes out.  
  
After the Ramble, they reach a long walkway filled with portrait artists and musicians, people enjoying the outdoors, or more often their phones. Since they don’t have a planned route, Bruce chooses a direction at random and Clint follows him, once again keeping an eye out for dogs and fashion faux pas. And then Clint’s sharp eye is caught by something completely different.  
  
“I’m getting it,” he insists. Bruce shakes his head, shying away from the stall owner’s amused look. “Think there’s an Avengers discount?”  
  
There isn’t, but the souvenir only costs three dollars, so Clint doesn’t complain. As they continue walking, Bruce glimpses once again the graphic of the [Avengers reimagined as cats](http://meatball42.livejournal.com/79691.html#cutid2), and shakes his head again.  
  
“This is amazing, I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Clint lets him know.  
  
“It’s called taste,” Bruce murmurs regretfully.  
  
They keep walking and come across a wide meadow with several baseball fields built on. A few have games going, and by mutual agreement Clint and Bruce find seats not too far from one, in the shade of a copse of trees. They watch the game while Clint eggs Bruce into an argument about how accurate the Catvengers and their uniforms are, or which other animals each of their teammates ought to be.  
  
The breeze carries over the sounds of other humans being carefree, safe, enjoying their lives. Above them, branches ruffle and sway. Birds cross the wide blue sky, and a squirrel stops a few feet from their bench, looking up at Bruce as though a treat might not go amiss. A wedge of sun reaches them through the trees and Clint rolls his sleeves up past his elbows, exposing a farmer’s tan bad enough that it’s Bruce’s turn to laugh out loud, at least until he realizes that he’s already gotten burnt.  
  
Once the baseball game wraps up, they head back to the Tower. The day has cooled off slightly and a few more clouds have blown in, bringing a bit of tension into the air that hints at a rainstorm in the near future. Bruce tilts his head back and soaks in the weakening rays, relishing the heat of his skin that speaks of nature’s punishment for such a beautiful day.  
  
On the way back through the Ramble, Bruce takes Clint's hand. Clint snorts and snickers childishly, but doesn’t let go.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

  
When the Avengers get summoned into SHIELD, Bruce tells them he’s sick. It’s an excuse he’s used before, knowing that everyone involved will let it go for the sake of their building’s infrastructure. Tony sends a message along that he’s busy, ignoring any follow-up, and calls Bruce and Clint to his lab.  
  
When they get there, he’s staring at one of his screens in the air. Something in his stillness tells Bruce that this is the moment they’ve been waiting for.  
  
“You good for this, Hawkeye?” Tony asks solemnly.  
  
“Locked and loaded.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
Clint stares at Tony with one of his half-smirks until Tony backs down. “You’re the expert. You going in suited up, or casual?”  
  
“We got any chatter?”  
  
“Something’s going on in D.C.” Tony waves a hand and long-distance ground photographs hover in the air. “Shots fired at the Triskelion, something exploded.”  
  
Clint squints at the images. “Normally I’d go in plainclothed for this, but I suppose I haven’t been keeping a uniform at SHIELD lately.”  
  
Tony grins, displaying his teeth. “Lucky you. I’ve got something new cooked up.”  
  
While they go over Clint’s augmented gear, Bruce works at hacking a few relevant feeds that he and Tony had red-flagged weeks ago. One of them, an extensive but seemingly redundant communication channel, is alight for the first time. He points JARVIS at it, and in a matter of seconds the encrypted message is readable. _“Out of the shadows, into the light_?”  
  
Tony and Clint stop talking and turn to the screen, just as the final word of the transmission is translated. _“Hydra,_ ” they read together.  
  
_“Out of the shadows,_ ” Clint whispers. “Does that mean-?”  
  
“Change of plans,” Tony says briskly. “No way we’re sending you in, it’s gonna be a slaughter.”  
  
“Like hell,” Clint spits, rounding on Tony. “I’m not walking away, I’ve got friends in the New York office. I’ve got teammates there!”  
  
“And you might find out that they’re not your friends at all,” Tony retorts. “Or you’ll have to watch them get gunned down. I’m not gonna be the guy that sends a mentally unbalanced Avenger-”  
  
Clint takes a step forward and gets right in Tony’s face. His hands are shaking. “If you’re so worried about what Cap’s going to think of you, you can just tell him this whack job snuck out from under your brown little nose to do his _fucking_ job.”  
  
With that, he snatches the uniform and toolbelt Tony made for him and stalks out of the lab.  
  
“You didn’t have to do that,” comments Bruce dryly, after a beat.  
  
Tony turns back to his screen. “Barton doesn’t need coddling. And he’s right, those are his people in there. I’d think less of him if he didn’t go in.”  
  
“He has PTSD.”  
  
“You know what’s worse than trauma?” Tony snaps, spinning to face Bruce. “Dying. I’ve had that choice before, I’ll probably have it again, and I’d choose living every time. The SHIELD agents in there, Hydra’s not gonna offer them a choice.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean he’s obligated to risk his own health-”  
  
“And you wouldn’t go in if it were one of us? No, never mind, I didn’t mean that.” Tony shakes his head, leaning his weight on his hands on the counter and slowing cracking the knuckles. “To you it’s a logical puzzle, you’d weigh your options. To Barton- Cap- for them it’s a question of morality: our people are in danger. Simple as that.”  
  
“And for you?” Bruce is a lot more relaxed now that he’s figured Tony’s being confrontational out of fear and concern. “Is it a logical question for you?”  
  
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Tony grunts.  
  
“Because it’s the best place for you to be, for now. Are you telling me your suit isn’t as ready for action as it can be?”  
  
Tony squints at Bruce over his shoulder. “I thought you weren’t that type of doctor,” he says suspiciously.  
  
Bruce smirks, then cracks the knuckles in his hands. “Point me somewhere.”  
  
“You’re on D.C. I’ll follow New York. JARVIS can handle everything else.”  
  
The hack and scavenge the internet in silence until JARVIS pulls up Clint’s contact feeds. He’s made it into the lobby at SHIELD’s 40th Street location, and although everyone in the video feed off Clint’s sunglasses seems tense, there are no obvious signs of catastrophe.  
  
“Agent Barton,” they hear, and Clint turns to see a young agent approaching. She reaches out and Clint’s hand appears from the bottom of the frame to shake hers.  
  
“Agent Bayraktar,” he replies familiarly. Bruce twitches. “Why the long faces around here?”  
  
“I wouldn’t know,” the agent says dismissively. “It’s above my paygrade. I’ll be your escort today.”  
  
Clint follows her. They pass through security without question. Tony and Bruce both note the way a guard or two flinch at the sight of an Avenger in full gear walking through the facility.  
  
“This doesn’t look good,” Bruce mutters. Tony grunts in agreement.  
  
In the elevator, the SHIELD agent moves, and the video fuzzes temporarily. When it clears up, in barely enough time for Tony to squawk at JARVIS to reboot the feed, Clint has a knife to her throat.  
  
“-destroy any bugs, I swear,” Bayraktar is saying frantically. “Clint, I’m trusting you because you’re an Avenger. Hydra is loose within SHIELD. I don’t know how high it goes, but at least to level seven-”  
  
“How do I know you’re not them?” Clint demands.  
  
“You don’t,” the woman replies. Her hands are up, palms forward, in the classic unthreatening pose, and she holds her chin high over Clint’s weapon. “I don’t care if you believe me. You can kill me right now, as long as you get the word out to the other Avengers.”  
  
She stares right into the camera, right into Clint’s glasses. Bruce shivers.  
  
The elevator dings.  
  
“Okay Jamila,” Clint says. “I believe you.” He spins his knife into a sheath on his side and is looking forward again when the doors open.  
  
They make it to an empty conference room before using the bug device again. Since it doesn’t knock out Tony’s bug, it doesn’t fill him with confidence, which he conveys to Clint.  
  
“That doesn’t look SHIELD-grade,” Clint comments, nodding at the keychain-shaped tool Jamila is tucking back into her belt.  
  
“Fresh out of R &D,” she comments, raising one eyebrow. “Lucky me.”  
  
“Tony doesn’t approve.”  
  
Jamila blinks. “Tony-” She takes a deep breath, and her shoulders fall. “The Avengers know?”  
  
“We’re on it. Can you tell me anything else you know?”  
  
While Jamila’s filling Clint in on her recon- apparently SHIELD agents make it a habit of creeping on their colleagues, in the spirit of spy-agency camaraderie, and today she’d overheard more than she bargained for- Bruce is unraveling a flurry of communications. Cold settles over his body.  
  
“The Hub is down,” Bruce announces to a suddenly silent room. “The Vault has been opened. The Treehouse is down. The Sandbox is… gone.”  
  
No one can reply.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Jamila’s warm gold skin has paled to a sandy shade at whatever expression Clint is making.  
  
“How do we get everyone out?” Clint says shakily.  
  
“Clint, what happened?” Jamila insists.  
  
There’s a banging on the door. Jamila spins toward the sound, but in an instant she’s composed again. She points at a vent in the corner of the room. The gaze of the camera waves from side to side dizzyingly, and Clint gestures her behind him. Jamila steps close and jabs her finger at Clint’s chest, right above the subtle, deep blue stylized A that is embroidered on the uniform of every Avenger. Her dark green gaze is as clear as it was when she told Clint he could kill her.  
  
Clint turns and scrambles silently for the vent.  
  
The exchange takes less than five seconds, but it’s enough time for the pounding on the door to increase. By the time Clint is in the ceiling and resting the vent cover back in place, the agents on the other side have become incensed enough to burst into the room, nearly barrelling over Jamila. There are five of them, with more visible in the hallway, and they all have either handguns or semi-automatic weapons out of their holsters.  
  
“Where is Hawkeye?” one of them demands. He’s dressed in full tactical gear, and he towers over Jamila in her standard-issue SHIELD jumpsuit.  
  
“Hitting the head,” she answers. “What the hell is this about?”  
  
It’s a good performance, Bruce thinks, startled but innocent.  
  
It’s not good enough. A second agent puts his hand to his ear, then raises his handgun and shoots Jamila through the chest.  
  
“Stay where you are, Barton!” Tony shouts. The video feed shudders, but no sound comes through. Something moving right below the frame looks like Clint’s hand covering his own mouth.  
  
“Spread out on this floor, search elevators and stairwells,” one of the agents barks. “There’s a window here; I want eyes on the outside of the building. We have a kill order, gentlemen. Let’s get to it.”  
  
“You need to move, Clint,” Bruce urges quietly. “They’re going to figure it out soon. You have to get to a different part of the building.”  
  
The camera feed shakes, but doesn’t move. In the center of the room, being ignored by the searching agents, Jamila shudders, eyes glassy, and bleeds out on white tile.  
  
“You can’t save her,” Tony says. Bruce glances at him and sees the weight of knowledge there that Tony normally doesn’t let out. “She did what she wanted. She got her intel out. Now you have to make sure it’s worth it. Go get more.”  
  
Bruce rounds on his friend, chest heaving, hands flying through the air in dismay, but he says nothing. Clint doesn’t need to hear them fighting, even if that was incredibly cruel. Tony makes a cutting gesture over his neck, though, and points at the hologram: Clint’s feed shows him crawling through the vents, away from the scene of his friend’s murder.  
  
“Any idea where they’d set up HQ?” Tony asks. The silence in the lab is filled with the sounds of Clint’s quiet breathing in the claustrophobic vents, occasionally broken by shouting or gunfire. Clint keeps crawling. The camera moves up and down.  
  
“You know how to get there, or do I need to find blueprints?”  
  
A hand appears in the weak light and moves in a crisp pattern. JARVIS translates, “No need.”  
  
“Are you okay, Clint?” Bruce says softly.  
  
The hand gestures again. JARVIS says, “No.”  
  
The hand makes a fist, which shakes, before Clint continues. JARVIS doesn’t translate that.  
  
Eventually, Clint makes it to a grate that looks down onto a long, wide room. To one side, covered by several heavily armed agents, a crowd is on their knees with their hands on their heads. Through the rest of the room, other agents walk, take phone calls, and type on computers without concern, and occasionally stop to talk or make distinctive salutes to each other.  
  
“Now what?” Clint’s whisper is very, very quiet.  
  
“Now you put down the glasses, take off the button transmitter, and you haul ass,” Tony says firmly.  
  
“I can’t leave them!”  
  
“You’re going to plant the bugs, and we’ll have eyes and ears on whatever these Nazi scumbags are planning. If these people are in danger, the Iron Man suit can have me there in under a minute, and the Hulk will show up fifteen seconds later.”  
  
“That could be a minute too late.”  
  
“Clint.” For the first time today, Tony’s voice gentles. “You just saw your friend get shot. I’m taking you out.”  
  
“You’re not my handler,” Clint whispers harshly. Spit flies onto the grate on the video feed. “And I’ve seen worse!”  
  
“I know,” Tony agrees. “But today, we need you out here.”  
  
“The battle is in D.C.,” Bruce chimes in. “Hill just called in for assistance on tactical analysis. The New York base won’t move on anything big before that’s settled.”  
  
Silence. Bruce twitches with anxiety and instinctively pushes back against a rising tide of green, only to find that it hasn’t materialized. Bruce is terrified, but the knowledge that his and Tony’s quickly-spun lies and the only thing keeping Clint alive is enough to keep the Hulk quiescent in the back of his mind.  
  
“Tell her I’m getting triple hazard pay,” Clint mutters, and the camera feed jostles.  
  
Bruce drops his chin to his chest and breathes, before looking to Tony and mouthing ‘ _Thank you._ ’ Tony shakes his head in wonder. He’s gripping his elbows across his chest.  
  
In the monotone of shock, Clint narrates his way out of the building, since he knows his teammates can’t see it. In return, neither Tony nor Bruce says a word when one of the SHIELD prisoners is executed.  
  
Instead, Tony silently commands JARVIS to track down Maria Hill.  
  
Twenty minutes later, Clint makes it back to the lab. He’s pale and his eyes are quietly despairing. He walks straight up to Bruce and squeezes him against his chest hard enough that Bruce has trouble breathing. He ignores it, though, in favor of squeezing back and searching out Clint’s scent in his neck under the heavy smells of dust and death and terror.  
  
Tony is muttering to JARVIS in the background, for once displaying tact. Bruce loosens his grip on Clint enough to reach his ear.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
Clint huffs a hollow laugh. “Definitely not.”  
  
Bruce holds him tighter. He’s aware that there’s very little he can do right now, and that his presence means very little in the face of Natasha’s absence and presumed danger. And if the feed of Jamila’s shooting is replaying over and over again in front of Bruce’s eyes, well… then maybe he understands a very small part of what Clint is feeling, has been feeling ever since the Battle of New York.  
  
“I’m here,” he says.  
  
Clint kisses next to his ear. “I know. Thanks.”  
  
“We all ready?” Tony says loudly. A large screen pops up in front of him; Bruce cranes his neck to see it without releasing Clint. Deputy Director Hill is there, looking as put together as usual, and the blinking in the corner of the screen means she can’t see them yet.  
  
Bruce pulls away from Clint’s embrace, slowly, not letting go of Clint’s forearms. “Are you up to this?”  
  
Clint closes his eyes for a long moment, and when he opens them, there’s steel there again. “I’m gonna have to be.”  
  
He lets go of Bruce and they step up to stand beside Tony.


	3. Chapter 3

Once Steve is out of the hospital, Natasha shows up at the Tower again. It’s a little crowded, what with a quarter of New York City’s SHIELD agents temporarily either held prisoner or housed on the few available living floors, but she manages to find the local Avengers in Tony’s private quarters. No one questions how she got there, even with security as tight as it is lately.  
  
She hugs Tony and shakes Bruce’s hand warmly, summoning up an ironic but friendly smile for him out of some unknown realms. Then she nods at Clint, and they go sit down on one of the couches in the living room.  
  
Tony sighs deeply and digs into his waffles. Bruce stares at his oatmeal and sulks.  
  
There’s no reason to, he tells himself. This thing with Clint, whatever it was… it was good. But it was never meant to be a forever type of thing. Or even a long-term thing. In his mind’s eye, Bruce stands an image of himself next to Clint and tries to imagine them as a couple, one of those pairs that people bundle together without thinking, and- obviously, it’s ridiculous, he can’t see it.  
  
He steals a glance at the next room, though, and the sight of Clint and Natasha embracing is, just. Natural. Fitting.  
  
Bruce looks back at his oatmeal and tells himself that he’ll miss his teammate, his friend, and maybe the cuddles, and that’s all.  
He doesn’t even manage to convince himself for ten seconds.  
  
Natasha enters the kitchen first and starts making herself a plate. Tony’s beady eye pops up, sensing an opportunity, and they immediately start bickering in a familiar way. A hand takes Bruce’s elbow, and he’s not even surprised enough to flinch.  
  
Clint pulls him into the living room and they stand out of sight of their teammates. “I’m going on a mission,” Clint says. “It’s for Steve. There’s a trail we’ve got to get a jump on before it goes cold.”  
  
Bruce hasn’t been out of the loop, and he understands why Clint wants to go. He even understands why Natasha and Steve would take Clint, even after everything he’s been through.  
  
That doesn’t mean he likes it.  
  
“I’ll call in,” Clint continues, a strange mix of gentle and gruff in his furrowed forehead and kind hands reaching out to Bruce. “And I’ll come back. I promise.”  
  
Bruce stares at him, trying to understand the unfamiliar emotions in Clint’s gaze, but all he can see is honesty and… something else. Familiar, but from a long time ago.  
  
“You gave me something to come back to,” Clint says. He smiles at Bruce with that look on his face, and cups Bruce’s hands in his warm ones. “Will you still be here?”  
  
Oh, the irony. Bruce laughs quietly. “Yeah. I will be.”  
  
“Good,” Clint says with a grin.  
  
Bruce leans in to kiss him, once, eyes open to Clint’s, savoring and memorizing. He leans their foreheads together for another breath. Then he steps back and lets Clint walk by him to the kitchen. He hears a few words from Tony and Natasha, the clattering of breakfast plates, and then they’re gone.  
  
When Bruce sits back down in front of his oatmeal, Tony stares at him in that blatant way he does when he's not sure what to do about non-engineering problems. With Clint's warmth lingering on his hands and lips, it's not hard for Bruce to give him a small but sincere nod. Tony nods back, relieved of mushy friendship duties, and they finish eating in companionable silence.  
  
Then, it's back to work.


End file.
